Miss McConnell Vows To Scuttle Any Attempt To Make The Rich Pay Their Fair Share

McConnell and henchmen

It has always been terribly awkward to be a right-leaning party in a democracy or even a quasi-democracy. After all, since the very dawning of the left-right concept, the right has represented-- has been all about-- the interests of those most adamant about preserving the status quo: those on the tippy-top of the economic (and social) pyramid. The right has always represented the interests of the monarchy, the aristocracy, the plutocracy, the landed interests, Big Money, Big Business, the upper echelons of the Church... But what about militarism, nationalism, racism, anti-Semitism, xenophobia, Know Nothingism, fascism, homophobia, free trade, anti-Choice...? Pish-posh! The right needs to persuade 50% +1 voter that their core program-- conservation of the economic status quo-- is worth voting for. Nothing like throwing a bit of divisiveness into the ole pot to make voters ignore their own bottom line interests.

The transitory alliances they have made with all of the above mean nothing to them except as a means to an end. Although there are sincere rightists who truly believe in racism or anti-Semitism or xenophobia or any of that nonsense-- and occasionally these screwballs actually get control of the right the way Hitler did-- normally those calling the shots use the "social issues" as hot button wedge positions to attract voters who might not otherwise buy into the argument "Vote Republican so we can protect the interests of multimillionaires because you just may be one someday too."

And yesterday, Mitch McConnell (R-KY), the official head of the Senate Republicans-- true believer and sociopath Jim DeMint heads the obstructionist caucus within the GOP and is tussling for power with the McConnell wing-- rang the ultimate clarion cry of all rightists: Don't Raise Taxes On The Wealthy. The GOP and those who finance them-- although those same interests have been savvy enough to finance plenty of right-leaning Democrats as well, of course (especially Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel)-- are nervous about Obama keeping his campaign pledge to force the wealthy to pay their fair share in taxes. On CNN yesterday McConnell made clear that he would fight with the last lisp in his body any attempt to raise taxes on the rich.

"So we have got to ask ourselves whether increasing capital gains taxes, dividend taxes and taxes on small businesses is a great thing to do in the middle of a deep recession. I think most of my members will think that that's not a smart move."

The Miss McConnell Way is just to bend over for a rightist monstrosity like Peter Peterson, the 149th richest crook in America-- and among the dozen most reactionary in politics, who lives to destroy Social Security and Medicare. Disingenuously, McConnell and his members-- as well as the rightists in the House and among extremist governors like Haley Barbour (R-MS), Mark Sanford (R-SC) and Rick Perry (R-TX)-- won't tell you that their efforts are on behalf of the 400 wealthiest families in America. No, they claim it's to protect small businesses. The lady, of course, protesteth too loudly. It was like their-- recently revitalized-- argument that the estate tax should be eliminated because it was causing family farms to be auctioned off. But at the height of that argument, in 2001, NY Times reporter David Cay Johnston, asked Bush's Farm Bureau to give him the name of a family he could interview who had lost their farm because of the estate tax. There wasn't one. Not a single one. It's always been a big fat GOP lie. One of many they routinely use to razzle and dazzle, their Hate Talk Radio-nurtured base.

Yesterday Joe Klein looked at this pattern of deception in regard to Louisiana's extremely deceptive and extremely obstructionist governor (and vice-presidential hopeful) Bobby Jindal.

Jindal... trotted out the standard Republican boilerplate about the need for a package with more tax cuts, especially in the capital gains tax. David Gregory pointed out that we'd just had eight years of that philosophy, and it hadn't done very much to help  job creation or median incomes. Jindal resorted to the Republican fantasy playbook--to the Kennedy and Reagan tax cuts, which allegedly helped boost the economy. (Actually, it was the Carter-Volcker monetary reforms that set the economy on a more stable path for growth in the early 1980s.) Needless to say, Jindal didn't mention either the Reagan tax increases (proportionately the largest in U.S. history) or the slightly smaller Clinton increases, which led to the lowering of interest rates and the economic boom of the 1990's. Nor did he mention the 30 years of neglect the nation's infrastructure has suffered during the Reagan era--not just the neglect of roads and bridges and levees, but also of the sorts of high-tech and green  infrastructure programs (including mass transit and high-speed rail) that will lay the basis for a more efficient economy in the future.

In other words, Jindal-- the alleged voice of the GOP future-- had absolutely nothing new to say. And what he did say, about the stimulus, was purposefully misleading. I'm not sure how well the Obama stimulus, banking and budget plans will work. No one does. But I do know how the philosophy and the misleading politics that Jindal offered today has worked in the recent past.

It's been a disaster.